


The One with Baseball

by 0fficiallyLeah



Series: A.V.E.N.G.E.R.S + [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reference to Captain America: The First Avenger, Short One Shot, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve finally talks, mention of the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4045897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0fficiallyLeah/pseuds/0fficiallyLeah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I may have told Barnes that you avoid baseball like the plague, and apparently that was vital information because he immediately became overly concerned?” Steve felt his stomach drop.  “So, I’m just giving you a heads up, man.” He hung up before Steve could find a reply. It was not a conversation he ever wanted to have.</p><p> </p><p>Or: Steve and Bucky have a heart to heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One with Baseball

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the Avengers. Obviously

A month ago Bucky asked Tony about doing repairs and upgrades to his arm. Tony was more than happy to comply, and they set a date. In order for him to work on it, Tony would have to remove Bucky’s arm, though he promised to not keep it longer than twenty-four hours. 

Two weeks ago, Sam had come to Steve with the idea of taking Bucky to a baseball game to help keep him from pacing while waiting on his arm.  Steve told him that Bucky would probably enjoy that. 

Since then, Steve had been purposefully pushing back paperwork that he needed to do, as leader of the Avengers, so that when Sam broke the surprise to Bucky, Steve had an excuse to stay home for the day. Bucky wasn’t particularly thrilled, but said nothing about it. He and Sam and Clint left for the game.

A few hours after they had left, Steve was working in his office. Tony had created space for Steve on one of the S.H.I.E.L.D floors of the tower for him to work on official Avenger stuff.  He was startled when his phone began to play Sam’s ringtone. When he answered, Sam’s tone wasn’t one he was used to hearing.

“I may have made a critical error.” Sam confessed.

“Uh, okay? On a scale of one to Hydra infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D, how worried should I be?”

“I would just like to point out that I am not actually a licensed therapist and I may have let something slip out that I shouldn’t have?”

“Did you tell Bucky that Nat and I kissed? Because we were running from Hydra and.”

"You and Natasha kissed?!" Sam interrupted.

"What? No. You had to tell me something?" He could practically hear Sam rolling his eyes.

“I may have told Barnes that you avoid baseball like the plague, and apparently that was vital information because he immediately became overly concerned?” Steve felt his stomach drop.  “So, I’m just giving you a heads up, man.” He hung up before Steve could find a reply. It was not a conversation he ever wanted to have.

* * *

Ever since he and Sam had found Bucky, scheduled visits with psychologist and doctors and anyone and everyone had become a norm. For the first six months they had all been on speed dial, so that Bucky could get help whenever needed. Steve had made sure that Bucky was getting treatment both mentally and physically, from therapy to food. The only thing he didn’t want to do was put Bucky on any medication without his consent. And every time Bucky went to sleep, Steve made sure to be there when he woke up. When Steve had finally woken up, after being frozen in the ice, he had been alone, and then to ‘help him cope’ with everything, he spent time isolated even more in a cabin. There hadn’t been therapy and counseling when he had been thrust into this new world. He just boxed it up and sealed away the loneliness and the bitterness and focused on his work. He wouldn’t do that to Bucky. Until Sam came along, no one asked him if or what made him happy; it wasn’t until he found Bucky that he had an answer. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it.

* * *

It was around dinner time when Bucky arrived back on their floor. He had two large pizzas and a six back of glass bottled cokes balanced on top. Hanging from his wrist was a plastic bag with a foam finger sticking out. Steve offered him a smile as he cleared up his pencils from the coffee table and put away his sketchbook.

“How was the game?” He asked.

“We lost, I almost punched an obnoxious fan, we bought pizza. It was almost like old times." His tone wasn't teasing, though it was obviously a joke. He had his assassin face on - looking at Steve like he was cataloguing the different ways he could make him talk. Steve ignored it. Instead, he lifted the cokes and set them on the table before moving to the kitchen to get plates. Tony had pretty much insisted that the Tower only supply disposable dishes and utensils, but Steve couldn't handle being wasteful. It wasn't even like they had to wash the plates by hand, they all had dishwashers. Pepper, the blessing that she was, had bought him some plastic dishes and real silverware for his personal kitchen. Though besides when it came to cereal, Steve was the only one who used the dishes regularly. Even as quick as he moved, by the time he got back to the couch, Bucky was already on his second piece, happily eating over his box. Steve couldn't help rolling his eyes at Bucky's smug grin.

Steve knew that Bucky was luring him into a false sense of security. He hadn't missed the jab about 'old times' and Bucky planned on interrogating him. It was the only thing keeping him from sitting down on the couch next to him. Bucky had been Steve's world for pretty much forever. However, Steve had spent years out of the ice, and he had lock away the ones that had been spent in recovery. Even if it was Bucky, Steve wasn't ready to talk about them yet. 

"I was thinking, after you eat you might want to pop in and check on Tony. No telling what kind of things he'll do to your arm." It was lame. A lame joke, a lame attempt to change the subject, a lame way to say 'please don't make me'. Like always, Bucky saw through him. He watched Steve silently as he chewed. Bucky had no qualms about talking with his mouth full - ever. However, his silence was saying more now than his words ever could: Steve wasn't going to get out of this conversation. 

"Do you remember," Bucky finally swallowed. "When I was nine and you were eight."

"Can you be more specific?" Bucky gave him a pointed look. Steve knew.

"You had just finished the last of your medicine, the third time you'd been sick that fall, and your ma didn't have the money to buy you more just yet. 'Give it a week' she'd said. Except a bunch of kids were playing down in the alley and you tried to convince me you could handle it. We both knew they'd never let you play. You had picked a fight with over half of them in your short life. But you were dying to play."

"You made me stay inside. Said it wasn't worth dyin' over and let me draw you. First time I had ever seen you sit still." Steve finished, trying to stop the story.

"I sat still so long, I fell asleep. Next thing I know, you're in the alley way. Gettin' in a fight 'cause someone was cheating. I had to drag your scrawny ass out of there." His lips tugged down at the edges. "You'd gotten to worked up, couldn't breathe. Had to hold you, so you could match your breathing to mine. Though, I was so scared my heart was beatin' just as fast as your's."

"Wasn't the first time."

"Wasn't the last either." He gave him a firm look, one he could've only learned from Steve's mother. It made an ache bloom in his chest. "You mind reminding me what game it was that you were dyin' to be a part of?" Steve turned his eyes to his hands. He moved almost robotically to keep eating, to keep his mouth full to avoid responding, even though his stomach felt like lead. "What's going on with you, Stevie?"

"I don't want to talk about this." Steve said. He rose to put his pizza in the refrigerator, suddenly no longer hungry.

"Seriously?" Bucky gaped at him.

"Seriously, Buck." Bucky was quiet while Steve was in the  kitchen. He hadn't expecting him to drop it so quickly. When he stuck his head out of the doorway, Bucky was returning his phone to his pocket. He turned his blanked glare on Steve before getting up too. He shoved the plastic bag with the foam finger into Steve's chest as he walked by to the elevator. Steve didn't bother with trying to make him stay.

* * *

Bucky didn't come back until the morning, missing arm returned. It had been the first night they hadn't shared a bed since he moved into the tower. They had grown up constantly invading each other's space and sleeping was just another time when they were inseparable. They didn't have money to spare for an extra bed, though if anyone ever asked - Bucky slept on the couch. It helped to share warmth in the miserable New York winters, but even in the summer when the heat was sweltering and laying next to a warm body almost felt like suffocating, they didn't spread out.

Steve didn't sleep at all. Instead he sat up in bed, absentmindedly drawing while he went over what he would tell Bucky when he showed back up. Finally, he got out of bed when the sun started to lighten the sky outside his window. He stalled going and looking for Bucky by making an apology omelet. When he finished, he stalled longer by eating it and then making another one because he felt guilty. Bucky showed up five omelets later at nine o'clock.

"I already ate." He informed Steve as he eyed the eggs. Steve promptly threw it away, plate and all, to anxious to even realize he did it. Bucky stood in the kitchen, hip cocked and pressed against the counter across from Steve. He was waiting for an explanation.

"How much do you know about me and the whole being frozen in ice thing?"

"Honestly, with the mood I'm in right now, you don't want me answering that question." Bucky ran his flesh hand through his hair. Letting out a deep sigh, he said, "I know you crashed the plane to save a lot of people. I know you were MIA for nearly seventy years. I know you never talk about it." Steve nodded.

"It was a week after you fell. It was like. It was like I realized I was going to have to face a future without you. It was hard. I saw myself finishing the war and marrying Peggy and settling down. I just kept thinking that that's what you would've wanted over and over again. I loved Peggy, I did and I won't lie about that. But the weight of losing you," He shook his head. Gathered his thought, "And then I came to a cross road. I chose to go down with the plane; I was more than willing to sacrifice myself." He stopped talking. The lump in his throat, the sting at the back of his eyes, the memories flashing in his mind. He choked back a sob. "A year before you deployed. In May." Before the air got stale and the heat set in. He couldn't get it out.

"We went to Ebbet's Field." Bucky said as if he was just now remembering - he probably was. "The Dodgers against the Phillys. We won. We had bought a coke at the corner store and split it. I made you promise not to start any fights, made you promise to just sit and watch the game. We got lucky with seats in the shade, though that didn't stop me from fussing over you. I took you to get a beer afterwards to celebrate. You were such a light weight."

"When I woke up, Fury had me in a room designed to be like I wasn't 'a man out of time'. I woke up to the radio on broadcasting the game. It was the last game we got to go watch." Steve's breath hitched. "It may have actually been sixty-five years, but it felt like I had just lost you. I thought I was gonna throw up. The war, the fighting, it all made me think of you, but I hadn't realized how normal everyday things were going to affect me too. I had put that plane into that water thinking I wasn't going to have to live with the weight of what I had done. I wasn't strong enough to live with the knowledge that I was the reason you died. And then I woke up in that room." He looked Bucky in the eye and saw he was near tears, while Steve was forcing his own not to fall. Bucky didn't look angry, didn't look anything but understanding. That's when Steve realized he didn't understand. "You don't get it? I woke up. I crashed a plane into the ocean and I woke up. I could've gone after you. I could've tried to find you. Even if I didn't know you were alive, I could've. I should've looked for your body. And then I woke up in that room and the first thing I hear is the baseball game. I don't do baseball, Buck. It just another painful reminder of how I failed you." He looked away from Bucky. Couldn't watch when the realization dawned on him how angry he should really be at Steve.

Bucky pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen floor to wrap Steve up in his arms. Steve came undone. He pressed his face into Bucky's neck and grabbed hold tight to the back of his shirt as the sobs wracked his body. Bucky ran his fingers through Steve's hair, gently shushing him. Listening to Steve's apologies that sounded like they were ripping him part inside broke Bucky's heart. The constant 'I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry' was not easily quelled by his reassurances. "It's okay, Stevie. I'm okay. We're okay. It wasn't your fault. I could never blame you." Over and over again, pressing kisses into his hair between every one.

Steve didn't have psychologists and doctors and people helping him work through his PTSD. Bucky did.

Steve didn't have people to lean on when he woke up. Now he does.

 


End file.
